By: centraljersey.com
Slurping through 87 oysters in two minutes was no big deal for Bill Forrest, the champion of this year’s New Jersey Oyster Bowl.
Hundreds of spectators gathered at Blue Point Grill on Nassau Street for the 12th year of this Princeton tradition on Sunday afternoon. The scents of horseradish and lemon wafted through the air as vendors sold raffle tickets, T-shirts, and clam chowder. Princeton’s tiger mascot posed for pictures, kids lined up for free face paint, and everyone else crowded around the stage with cameras and cheers of "Slurp, baby, slurp!"
The Oyster Bowl takes place every year on Super Bowl Sunday. The rules are simple: eat as many oysters as you can in two minutes. Place the empty shells in a bucket. No regurgitation or you’re disqualified. At the end, the contestant with the most shells in the bucket wins.
It costs $45 to enter the competition and all proceeds benefit the Central and South Jersey Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, to support breast cancer research and education.
This year, 96 contestants competed in eight heats of both individual and corporate team competition. Blue Point Grill ordered 7,000 Cape May oysters for the occasion and raised more than $25,000.
"It’s entertaining, it’s comical and it’s messy," said Steven Murray, manager of Blue Point Grill, "It’s just a great way to get the word out about breast cancer."
Congressman Rush Holt made a surprise appearance at the competition. He had never been to the Oyster Bowl before, but said he was glad to see support for the Susan G. Komen cause.
"It’s dollar by dollar, oyster by oyster," Holt said, "It’s not a huge check. It’s person by person."
The first Oyster Bowl took place 12 years ago, when Blue Point Grill had just opened. One of their employees’ wives had been diagnosed with breast cancer, which inspired the Oyster Bowl founders to work with the Susan G. Komen foundation.
"It was kind of natural at the time that we needed to support breast cancer," Murray said, "Because it was right in front of us every day."
That first year, 24 contestants participated in the Oyster Bowl. Twelve years later, the contest has raised more than $150,000. Sponsors such as Borden Perlman, First Choice Bank and the Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce have jumped on board. And in the process, slurpers have consumed more than 80,000 oysters.
"People always want to know, what’s an oyster bowl?" said Nancy Healey, executive director of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, "It’s a conversation starter, and that’s what you want."
Barbara DeVaney, a Princeton resident of 23 years, was part of the winning corporate team. The contestants from Mathematica, a policy research firm headquartered in Princeton, defeated 10 other corporate teams to win a golf outing at Greenacres Country Club.
"It’s really more the prestige than the prize," DeVaney said.
Some celebrity slurpers also competed, including Siobhan Allgood, who has been featured on the show "Hell’s Kitchen" with chef Gordon Ramsay. Allgood came in third for the women’s division, with a grand total of 71 oysters slurped.
This year’s contest also featured the second-ever tiebreaking slurp-off, between the women finalists Lizzy McDaniel and Theza Friedman. Both women slurped 78 oysters in their first rounds. They then had a one-minute slurp-off to determine the champion.
Friedman, who had cut her finger on an oyster shell during the first slurping, refused a band-aid out of fear that she "might eat it." With blood dripping into her lemon juice and oyster sauce, Friedman gulped 47 oysters in one minute, beating McDaniel by a single oyster to win women’s division glory.
Yet none could defeat Bill Forrest, who came from Philadelphia to win his second Oyster Bowl championship in a row. Last year, Forrest slurped 93 oysters to win a trip to Cancun. This year, he swallowed 87 oysters in exchange for a trip for two to the Caribbean, sponsored by WPST and Nassau Broadcasting Partners.
"I definitely could’ve eaten more," he said, "I wanted to go for 100. But I slowed down a little at the beginning."
Still, Forrest was enthusiastic about his slurping triumph.
"I came to dominate," said Mr. Forrest, "And that’s what I did."